


In Love

by TheNuttyCracker



Category: Women's Soccer RPF
Genre: Angst, F/F, Kinda sad but happy, gay angst, i just love this damn angst idk, kellex - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-20
Updated: 2019-08-20
Packaged: 2020-09-18 20:44:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 917
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20319238
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheNuttyCracker/pseuds/TheNuttyCracker
Summary: Kelley O'Hara knows what it's like to be in love.





	In Love

Kelley O’Hara has fallen in love many times. She wasn’t ashamed to admit it. It wasn’t a flaw or a weakness, but something she embraced. So what if she was in touch with her emotions?

It wasn’t like she acted on them.

The first time Kelley fell in love was unexpected but enjoyable to say the least. She was a kid who just happened to be friends with the pretty girl in class. But apparently, having a crush on friends who are girls in Georgia is frowned upon, so she stops. She goes back to pretending to be best friends with the pretty girl. She decides not to tell her that she wanted to be more than friends.

The second time Kelley falls in love, she’s on her college soccer team and doesn’t have time to think about a relationship. Sure, the girl is pretty and nice and very good at soccer, but that doesn’t mean Kelley is head over heels. It just means that she can’t always stop herself from staring. Her friends tell her that she’s not in Georgia anymore and that they don’t care who she likes. She wonders if they would care if it was a teammate. 

Instead, Kelley decides that people off the team are better, and she goes to parties and she has fun and she might go home with a few girls. But never the girl she still can’t help but love. So she pretends she’s not falling for her, and after a while the feelings die. She graduates first and tries to forget, and when they are eventually reunited internationally, Kelley only looks at her with friendship.

The third time Kelley falls in love, it’s with an arrogant, silly, hot rising soccer star who she played against in college. They go to camp together and even though Kelley thinks that her ego is a little too big, she feels herself slipping down the same hole as before. She can’t help but snicker at the girls jokes, go along with her crazy stunts, and let herself fall in love once more.

Her teammates are all accepting but she still doesn’t want to upset the peace so she stays silent. She keeps being best friends with the girl and pretends to not be jealous when someone else calls her attention away. She pretends she’s not angry that they’re not bus buddies, and instead her friend sits with the other star, the forward who plans on taking the world by storm. So Kelley pretends and pretends and soon she doesn’t have to pretend anymore. 

She may be good at falling in love, but she knows how to pull herself out of it too.

The fourth time Kelley falls in love, she finds out that she was wrong about being able to stop herself. She starts to wonder if all the other times she had misunderstood what love was, because now she finally gets it. She finds love in the small touches, the hand holds, the cheek kisses, the hugs. She finds love in her new best friend, the striker she had once been jealous of so many years ago. 

Kelley finds herself slipping again, but this time she decides not to hold herself back as she goes. Instead, she rushes in head first, flirting and laughing and making it so clear that maybe, just maybe, this time it would work out. 

They call, they facetime, and eventually they live together and it’s the best three months of Kelley’s life. They are best friends. Inseparable. 

Then she moves to Orlando to be with him and Kelley’s world falls apart. 

The fifth time Kelley falls in love, she’s still healing from when the last one broke her heart. She was still picking up the pieces of her failed friendship - she would be lying to herself if she called it a relationship - and didn’t mean to fall for someone else. 

Except that she does, and this time Kelley decides to play it safe again. When she didn’t act on her feelings, she didn’t get hurt. She saw the pattern.

But this new girl won’t let her. She worms her way into Kelley’s heart and isn’t letting go. She’s always there for her, supporting her, letting Kelley take her time. It’s magical and different and Kelley realizes that she was wrong before. She hadn’t known love until she met this girl and it wasn’t in the fleeting moments, the stolen glances, in the maybes. It was in spoken promises, meeting families, and three little words said out loud. 

So when she wins the World Cup for the second time, there’s no question who Kelley wants to run to. She can hear Alex calling her name but she keeps running to the stands. She knows that people in Georgia and all over the world will see her but she keeps running.

She runs until she finds her girlfriend and pulls her in. She can feel the eyes but there is nothing in this world that she cares about more than her in this moment. 

When she turns around, she meets Alex’s eyes and in them she finds heartbreak. 

She turns to Tobin and Christen but they aren’t even looking at her, too wrapped up in each other to care what she could be doing.

She looks back up and her girlfriend is still smiling down at her, beaming and filled with love and in that moment Kelley knows. She knows that this is the love that matters.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! I am mostly obsessed with preath but kellex angst really gets me. Would love your feedback! Stay tuned for some more woso fics, I have quite a few drafted already...


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